


Temporary Upset

by josephides



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27087211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides
Summary: The two weeks after Bran had returned from his self-isolation in a hotel in Spokane had been an intense period for the both of them. She had been practically housebound with him. The first forty-eight hours she had been unable to leave his sight. They had both got on each other’s nerves to a degree that she hadn’t thought was possible.
Relationships: Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick
Comments: 6
Kudos: 191





	Temporary Upset

Emerging from the kitchen, Bran gave her the vaguest of vague smiles. “Welcome home,” he murmured, taking his seat at the smaller dining table they had in the living area. It was usually covered in detritus from the pack – a puzzle that Kara was doing, books that someone was reading. Usually if the family ate together, they did so in the kitchen. This table had obviously been cleared for the occasion of her return. Someone had even found the candlesticks.

“This is nice,” Leah said, snapping her napkin to one side. It wasn’t often that food was prepared for her and she could be big enough to admit it was very welcome. She was famished. Travelling always meant she lost her routine and she found herself missing meals, always a risky thing for a werewolf. Particularly, she mused, one with as short a temper as she.

They ate, exchanging pleasantries which were light enough not to offend anyone. Leah was in a good mood. Charles’s cooking, though he didn’t realize it, had been very influenced by Leah’s. Her step-son liked to think she had nothing to do with his upbringing, liked to believe she had been some form of wicked step-mother when she had done her best. She’d come to her marriage having had no children herself before, no maternal bone in her body, and Charles had been a wild, half-wolf child who obeyed only his absentee father. It was not surprising what attempts she had made – few though they had admittedly been – were not successful.

But she had fed him when she could and he had learned her style of cooking as well as what he had learnt from his maternal family.

More than these slightly bitter thoughts bothered her during the meal, however. There was something else niggling. She puzzled it over as she piled more potatoes on her plate, as she helped herself to buttered greens, as she relished in the comfort of being home again. Charles and Anna were chatting normally – well, Anna was chatting and Charles was adding in comments where she anticipated him to, which from her experience of Charles was about ten times chattier than normal. And Bran was— oh. 

Feeling stupid, she realized it was Bran. Of course it was Bran.

She looked at him then out of the corner of her eye, watched him as he focused intently on Anna as she talked about the movie she and Charles had seen that afternoon. Anna waved her hands about, her face lit with humor and vivacity, making her a very captivating storyteller, much like Leah’s mate in fact. Bran was making noises of assent and interest, smiling a particular smile. He looked fond and very Bran-like.

He was not, Leah recognized, all there.

“No, please, let Bran and I clear,” she said hurriedly, when Charles made a move to start tidying the dirty plates away. “You stay where you are.”

Charles lowered himself into his seat. He obeyed both because of manners and because she was his father’s wife and had to. Bran picked up his own plate, then the empty dish in front of him. He mechanically carried this to the kitchen whilst Leah stacked the rest, making a few staccato comments about how delicious the meal had been. She thought she went slightly too far because Anna started to look suspicious. She walked briskly to the kitchen. “I’ll be back with ice cream!” she called.

Pushing the door open with her shoulder, she haphazardly shoved the plates and bowls onto the nearest counter and closed the door behind her. Bran was leaning against the kitchen island, palms flat and head down.

“How long?” she whispered, mindful of the ears in the living area.

“About two hours after you left.” Bran jerked his head to beckon her over and she slid in front of him between his arms, pulling her hair to the side and tilting her head to the left. He leaned into her and sighed. “Take the sweater off.”

Of course. It probably stank of the plane and the guy to whom she had been sat uncomfortably close. She pulled it off so she was standing in just her tank top and tossed the sweater onto a stool. Bran wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her a couple of inches off the ground and burying his face in her neck. She could feel his breath, hot and damp, as he sucked down the scent of her like he needed her to survive.

She stroked a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you say something when we spoke yesterday?”

Bran rubbed his cheek against her neck. He was a little bristly so it made her shiver pleasantly. She supposed that had been another sign that she had missed. Her mate didn’t often sport stubble. It meant he hadn’t Changed whilst she had been away and Bran usually found his wolf form once a day. “Because it’s ridiculous.”

She didn’t know if it was ridiculous but it was certainly debilitating. He would be no good to anyone like this. 

“I suppose… this is the first time I’ve been away. Since,” Leah said, thoughtfully.

He nodded. “I believe that is the problem.”

“Is it as bad as… before?”

The two weeks after Bran had returned from his self-isolation in a hotel in Spokane had been an intense period for the both of them. She had been practically housebound with him. The first forty-eight hours she had been unable to leave his sight. They had both got on each other’s nerves to a degree that she hadn’t thought was possible and Bran had, unusually, frequently lost his temper with her.

“I guess I’ll tell you tomorrow,” Bran said drily. 

She sighed. Great. Just great.

“I presume you can hold it together until they leave?”

Bran made an ‘ugh’ noise, as if _she_ was really testing his patience. He put her down and unwound his arms from around her but didn’t otherwise step out of her personal space. His scowl was epic. She had to really tense her facial muscles to restrain her smile. “You might be amused now,” he warned, “but you remember what happened last time.”

“Yes, that really sucked,” Leah agreed.

“Sucked? You’ve been spending too much time with Damian,” he grunted. Then a shimmer of gold crossed his eyes. “Just how much time _have_ you been spending with Damian?” He picked up her sweatshirt and sniffed it.

“Oh for god’s sake,” she muttered, ducking out of his arms and going to get the ice-cream.

*

After Charles and Anna left, both of whom had definitely realized ‘something’ was occurring and had incorrectly attributed it to Leah’s ‘mysterious’ trip, Bran followed Leah around the house as she put back everything that had been moved in her absence. All the cushions on the couch were in the wrong place. There was a chair in the kitchen that shouldn’t have been there. Why had someone rearranged all the pictures on the mantelpiece?

Once that was done, he followed her up to her room and watched her brush her teeth. “Do you need me to shower?” she asked, spitting foam into the basin.

Bran gave her an ‘are you stupid?’ look.

Oh, yes. Lest she forgot. She was about to be excessively ravished.

“I suppose I oughtn’t bother to put pajamas on, then?”

Her mate rolled his eyes and started to undress, leaving his clothes in piles on the way to her bed. She scooped these up and tossed them in the direction of the laundry hamper and then removed her airplane-stinky clothing at more leisurely pace.

“Please. Take your time, Leah,” he growled at her impatiently.

“My goodness, Bran.” Leah quickly plaited her hair and went to join him. He was sitting in the middle of her bed, hungry eyes dark like pitch. He grabbed her when she was near enough and tossed her onto her back in a move so fast she let out a noise of surprise. A shimmer of gold crossed his eyes again and she bit her tongue, withholding her next snippy comment.

Bran crawled over her, moving on the tips of his fingers and the tips of his toes. A shiver of anticipation rippled through her. He nudged her nose with his and kissed her. “I’ll be gentle,” he whispered thickly.

Leah raised her eyebrows. “You don’t have to be.” Then she raised her head and kissed him hard. And they were on.

*

Bran woke her in the morning and, on edge even in her sleep, her first reaction was to grab the bedside lamp and attempt to brain him with it.

“All right,” he said, catching the neck of the lamp easily and rolling her over to fully disable her. “I can see that was a mistake.”

“Good grief, Bran.” Leah rubbed her face, letting go of her hold on the lamp so he could put it to one side. “Sorry,” she said, knowing she sounded petulant and not sorry at all.

“My fault. You’re jumpy when you’re tired.” He kissed her cheek and gave her a big, insincere smile. “We have to spend some quality time together today, I’m afraid. I attempted to go to my room and was unsuccessful.”

He sounded suspicious. Leah tilted her to the side so she could see the connecting doorway. “You ripped the door off its hinges.”

“I did, yes.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it shouldn’t be there,” he said through gritted teeth.

Closing her eyes briefly, Leah tried to put herself back into the mindset she had the _last_ time. Instead of arguing with him – which became circular and incomprehensible, as Bran fought his instincts and attempted to rationalize things – she just had to let it go. “All right. That’s great. Shall we shower?”

“ _No_.”

No, of course not, Leah thought resentfully. Why would they want to smell fresh and clean when they could just smell like each other, sweat and sex? She attempted to sound upbeat, telling herself this time – _this time_ – they wouldn’t end up screaming at each other. She would strive to be the best mate she could possibly be in these circumstances.

“Super! Breakfast? Would you like to feed me?” She recalled this had been important to him before.

Bran nodded and his shoulders seemed to relax, as if he had been anticipating her refusal. “Yes, let’s do that.”

So they made breakfast and it was relatively companionable. She even managed to give him a run-down of her trip, carefully editing any conversations she might have had with a man, alone, in fact heavily implying almost everyone had been female. From the looks Bran was giving her, she wasn’t fooling him but she decided to brazen it out.

They ate side by side at the dining table, with his hand high on her inner thigh.

“What is in your schedule for today?” she asked politely, to give herself an idea of the boredom that awaited her. Her days were usually more active than his – probably part of the reason he made sure to Change at least once.

Bran sighed. “About half a dozen phone-calls and then I’m supposed to deadhead some roses with Asil.”

Leah grimaced. 

She knew well it was an honor and a privilege to be invited into Asil’s hothouse, one that she had certainly never been given. Bran was working his way up to making Asil their official ‘third’ and part of that involved spending more time with him, just to make sure that he could handle it. She had her own views on Asil being their third, none of them good, but Bran had brushed them aside.

Normally, time in the hothouse with Asil would be something Bran enjoyed. They talked of old things, of the past that they had occasionally shared. Since Devon’s passing, he had lost part of that shared history and she always felt Bran came back more peaceful when he spent time with the Moor. She resented it, of course, but that didn’t make it any less true. 

“You’ll have to cancel,” she said, putting her knife and fork together on her plate.

“I don’t want to do that.”

Naturally not. “Well, then, we’ll see how Asil enjoys my presence in his ivory tower.”

This was not, Leah knew, going to go well and if Bran had been in his right mind he would have known that.

*

“Funny story,” Leah said, panting as she lay on top of Bran, the length of her body pressed to him. He had his face buried in the hollow of her throat and his hands up the back of her shirt. Everyone in the hothouse was currently bleeding.

“Oh, please, do tell,” Asil wheezed, attempting to recover from having his windpipe crushed by his Alpha.

“Since,” she stopped to choose her words delicately. She hated Asil but she also knew what it was like to love someone and be betrayed. Unlike her mate, _she_ wasn’t completely cold-hearted. “Since _Spokane_ he’s developed this separation issue when I go away. We thought he’d got over it but then I went to Vancouver to deal with a minor fae problem and it turns out he hasn’t.”

Asil rolled onto his side which apparently brought him an inch too close for Bran’s liking. She felt the growl all the way down to her toes.

“Could you scoot back?” she asked through her vibrating teeth.

Asil did so. Since both Bran and Leah were lying down, he also couldn’t get up, instead was forced to remain prostrate on the floor with them. “The wolf thinks, what, you’ve left him? Died? Or that someone is going to harm you?”

The Moor had been around a long time. She supposed it was possible he had witnessed the like before. “The latter, at least that’s what Bran believes.” Despite all rational evidence to the contrary. “It’s why he’s been delegating all the travel to Charles and Anna. Then me. But that apparently backfired.”

She petted Bran’s head, knowing full well he was barely listening.

“You should have told me,” Asil grunted, rolling onto his back. “I wouldn’t have…” His voice faded.

“What?” she prompted, nastily. “Been an asshole like usual to me?”

As anticipated, Asil had not taken well to having Leah in his personal space, despite being unable to defy his Alpha’s direct order and despite Leah being, for her, reasonably circumspect about the situation. He had kept sniping at her, in the way he mostly got away with in front of Bran. Asil had practiced well the fine line between being rude to her and ‘disrespect’, the latter of which Bran would shut down immediately.

This afternoon he had just kept sniping and sniping and sniping and Bran had finally snapped. Violently.

Asil waved an elegant hand around, simultaneously acknowledging and dismissing this. “Tough for him. Losing control like this.”

She rested her hand on the top of her husband’s head, stroking her thumb up and down his thick hair. “Yes, it’s a real picnic.”

The three of them lay silently on the floor of Asil’s hothouse for a few minutes. After a while, Bran’s heart rate began to even off and his breathing slowed. He lifted his head, met Leah’s eyes apologetically first and then looked to his right. “Sorry, my friend.”

Again, Asil waved a hand. “It’s forgiven. I remember the feeling waell.”

Leah dug her fingers into Bran’s hip. “Oh, so this is just normal, then?”

This time, the Moor grinned, all sharp white teeth. She braced herself. “Normally only in newly mated couples. Having something of a honeymoon, are we?”

She knew it. She climbed off Bran. “Get up. We’re going home.”

They walked home because she didn’t want Bran to drive and he wasn’t able to cede control to let her. It started raining and neither of them had jackets or appropriate footwear. Though it was only a twenty-minute hike up to their house, it felt twice as long and she was soaked to the skin.

She stopped just as their house came into view. “I want a shower,” she demanded. “Alone. Together. Whatever. I want to wash.”

Bran stopped, hair plastered to his head and looking miserable, and nodded. “Okay.” He held out his hand and after a moment she took it. She squeezed it tightly and bumped his shoulder with hers.

“What did he mean honeymoon?” she muttered, annoyed that she had let Asil get into her head. “We’ve been together for two hundred years. I _hate_ him.”

Bran let them into their house. “You don’t hate him.”

“I do.” She kicked off her boots, which were wet and muddy and would need cleaning, and stomped upstairs with wet socks on, Bran on her heels. “He’s hypocritical and rude and pleased with himself.”

Her husband snorted. “Are there any werewolves you don’t think that of?”

In her bedroom, she started undressing, furiously, flinging items in the direction of the hamper, getting no satisfaction from hitting her target each time. “No werewolf men, _certainly_.”

“Particularly me.”

Leah glanced at him. He was smiling, watching her in a precise way, like he might take a little bite of her at any moment. “Don’t try flirting with me, Bran Cornick, I’m not in the mood.”

He started towards hers. “I could get you into the mood.”

She fended him off with her muddy jeans and pointed to the bathroom. That his confidence was arousing was not something she was going to admit. “Go turn the shower on.”

*

On day two, Leah opened her eyes to find Bran watching her. “Creepy,” she said.

He was unrepentant. There was a deep furrow across his forehead. “You look very angelic when you’re asleep.”

She pressed her lips together, unsure how to take this. Coming from any other man, ‘angelic’ might be a compliment. But Bran was not any other man. And they didn’t really do compliments unless it was something along the lines of ‘nice clean kill, well done’.

Instead, she changed the subject, “How are you feeling?”

Bran shrugged. “About the same. But hungry. I don’t know if you noticed but we’re out of fresh food because I couldn’t go to the store whilst you were away.”

Excellent. A grocery store. Together. Perhaps later they could build some complicated and cheap furniture missing crucial components that would make them want to stab each other in the eye.

“I’ll get dressed.”

Bran drove, of course, and they took his truck. This also meant they had no music during the drive as his radio was perpetually broken and wasn’t compatible with smart phones so she couldn’t even play Spotify. “Stop frowning at me,” he told her. “Just listen to your thoughts.”

“My thoughts are angry.”

This made him grunt in agreement. Then a few minutes later, he said, snippily, “Do you have to sit so far away? You’re practically leaning out of the door.”

Sighing, Leah shuffled over on the bench and put her hand on his thigh. “Better?” she asked, saccharine sweet.

Bran ignored her, his brow furrowed with consternation. She felt mean, then, so she rubbed his thigh apologetically and leaned against his side. She loved him. She just had a hard time expressing this, when she knew it wasn’t reciprocated. “Did you at least sleep better?”

“Yes,” he said, turning his head to nuzzle her hairline. “I was quite sick of staring at the ceiling whilst you were away. What about you?”

“Out like a light, as usual.” Nothing phased Leah. She could sleep through a hurricane. “I’ve been having strange dreams, though. Sort of a pressure on my chest.” She pressed her palm over where she had felt it.

There was little Bran could say to that except make a sympathetic noise.

He pulled into the parking lot of their local big chain grocery store. “Two carts,” she said, holding out his half of the list. “If you can manage it, we’ll split up and meet in the middle.”

He grumbled. “Agreed. But you come if I need you.”

Always, she thought simply. “Of course.”

The middle of the store was a clothing section, designed to look like a store within a store. When she found him, Bran was leaning on the handle of his cart and staring down into it at his clasped hands. He looked up when he sensed her. She saw immediately why he wasn’t looking around. His eyes were gold.

They embraced in the middle by a couple of mannequins wearing budget cashmere, his palm cupping the back of her neck and his face pressed to the side of hers. “This sucks,” he said.

Leah patted his back and gave a passing human a ‘what you looking at?’ glare. As _if_ people hadn’t had breakdowns in Walmart before. “I got a couple of those rotisserie chickens for lunch that you like.”

“I do like those,” Bran sighed. He put his other hand up the back of her sweater, pressing against her spine.

A few minutes later, just as she’d started to feel the quality of the cashmere on the nearest mannequin and had maybe convinced herself into buying a couple, as a test, Bran stepped back from her and sniffed dismissively. His eyes had gone back to normal. Several people had walked past them, including a security guard.

“Good?” she checked.

“Good.”

“Excellent. I’m just going to get that sweater over there,” she told him, pointing to the shelf with the cashmere sweaters in shades of blue. “Then we can go.”

They paid and Leah drove them home.

*

After lunch, Leah followed him into his office, her iPad clutched to her side. They had brought in an armchair yesterday so that she could be more comfortable whilst he worked. She didn’t actually mind listening to the phone calls he made or the sounds of his fingers tapping away on his keyboard. He told her most things, anyway, so for her this was just a shortcut. But she knew it bothered him having her in his office whilst he was speaking to his Alphas. The façade of privacy was lost.

After a while, Bran lit the fire and she dozed, the heat in the room becoming soporific, the rhythmic keyboard taps eminently soothing. She reminisced about when his ‘job’ had been about talking to people, about imposing order face-to-face. These days they had order – more or less – amongst their people and now it was about the chess moves that were being made against them as a species, the one-upmanship. The fae. The witches. The humans. Endlessly the humans.

“Remember when vampires were the biggest problem we faced in America?” she asked.

The corner of Bran’s mouth lifted, though he didn’t look away from his computer screen. “I do.”

“Those were the days.”

It was getting a little warm. She pulled off her crew neck and dropped it on the floor, then returned to her iPad. Bran took a call and, holding the phone in the crook of his neck, poked at the fire with the cast iron poker. The firelight brought out the different tones in his sandy hair, picking up on the red in it. He hung up and looked at her, still crouched in front of the fire. “Pizza for dinner?” he suggested.

A treat. “Oooh.”

He came to kneel by her and she leaned forward to kiss him, since he appeared to be angling for it. She drew back and touched the burnished ends of his hair. Her heart hurt, a little, as it sometimes did when she looked at him.

Bran was searching her face. “I think we’re doing better this time.”

“I’m less angry with you this time,” she pointed out.

“I notice you said ‘less’.” He turned his head and kissed her palm.

Leah smiled. “Aren’t you the clever one?”

*

They gorged on pizza and watched a ridiculous movie. Since they’d made a quick deviation to the bedroom whilst the pizza was cooking, Leah hadn’t bothered to re-dress in any more than her tank top and underwear, assuming her evening would feature more of the same. Bran was wearing a pair of sweat pants. He held her ankle whilst they ate and criticized the movie non-stop.

“Oooh, there’s an even worse sequel,” Leah said, as the credits rolled.

Bran pointed at the screen with enthusiasm. “Play on. Did we finish the ice cream the other night?”

She shook her head. He squeezed her ankle. “Pause it whilst I make us dessert.”

Halfway through the second excruciatingly awful movie, the remains of two ice cream tubs melting on the coffee table, Bran made a move on her and they were lightly making out on the couch when a familiar voice cleared his throat behind them. Perhaps more attuned to the world at this point, Leah turned her head to exchange a bug-eyed look with Charles.

She grabbed hold of Bran’s hair, stopping his inexorable descent down her neck. He growled at her. “Yes, I know, but your son is here.”

Bran followed her eyes and gave Charles a caustic look, as if his son wasn’t always welcome in their home. “ _Why_ are you here?”

Charles flung his hands to the sides. “You haven’t been answering your phone.”

Perplexed, Leah released her mate and looked at the clock on the mantle. “It’s midnight. Why would he answer his phone?” Neither of them had heard it but the television had been turned up very loud.

“Because I’ve been calling you with an emergency.”

“Oh, sorry,” she said, because Bran was still scowling. She slid off Bran’s lap, leaving him one ankle to clutch like a pacifier. “We’ve been… busy.”

Matching his father’s scowl with a near-identical one, Charles cast a disapproving look at their state of dress. “I can see that. What’s going on? I take it _you_ don’t want to go to Seattle to deal with some kelpies?”

Bran made a small noise that suggested he very much did but knew he very much couldn’t.

“He can’t,” Leah said for him. Then, in consideration for his feelings, added, “But he’s very sad about it.”

Charles narrowed his eyes. “Is there a reason you can’t speak?”

“I can speak,” Bran said through his teeth. “My wife is doing a fine job answering for me, however.”

“Hmm,” his son replied, suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

She tried to give Charles a reassuring smile. “We’ll tell you after the kelpies. Will you take Anna?” Leah asked, because she had no doubt he would.

Charles nodded, still visibly concerned. He sighed, then, as if they were both a trial to him but one he wasn’t ultimately responsible for. He would know through the magic of their shared pack bonds that everyone was safe. “May I get a couple of books from your office?”

Bran did not want another dominant in his office, that was clear, at least to Leah. But this was his son. He nodded tightly. “Top left shelf and bottom middle,” he said.

Charles waved a hand and wandered in the direction of his office. “I know, Da.”

They both listened for a moment and then Bran tugged at her foot. He was looking at her mouth. “I’d like you back now, please.”

“Wait until he’s gone,” she whispered, flushing.

“ _No_ , Leah.”

She negotiated. “If you lie down, I’ll cuddle with you.”

Grumbling, Bran did so and she tucked herself down his side, between the cushions and his restlessness. She rested her head on his shoulder. His whole body was tense, his eyes fixed on the space where Charles would eventually re-emerge.

“Must be weird feeling like this about Charles,” she murmured. “Does your wolf consider him more of a threat than Asil?”

“No,” Bran replied, shortly. “Different.”

“Different how?”

Her husband squirmed. “Asil is a dangerous werewolf but Charles is witchborn.”

Leah petted his stomach, thinking as she always did how strange it was to dislike what was inside of you. Bran hated and feared witch-born wolves because he was one and his sons were, too. In some ways, Leah was grateful she was just a generic werewolf. He couldn’t mistrust her for her blood.

“But, Asil would fuck you,” Bran added, still glaring across the room.

She flinched – his rare use of a curse word combined with the incomprehensible statement blindsiding her. “I beg your pardon?”

Bran started a low, rumbling noise in his chest, vibrating under her ear. “I don’t like it.”

Recognizing that she had somehow triggered a dangerous mood, and Charles was still rifling through Bran’s most personal of spaces, she carefully slid herself on top of her husband. Charles would really get an eyeful now when he came back. She was grateful that her panties were the full coverage, sensible kind, if a rather unlikely neon pink.

She levelled their gazes and brushed her fingers down his face, over his bristly cheeks, scraping her nails to hear the rasp. “Hello, how are you doing?”

Gold rolled across his eyes. “Not great.”

“Can I do anything?”

He exhaled and looked up at the ceiling. “This is fine. We need to tell him.”

Bran linked his hands behind her back and she rested her chin on his chest. “That sounds like a good idea,” she said, as if she hadn’t already told Charles they would do so. “Do you want to do that now?”

The rumbling came back. “Or later. Later is fine,” Leah surmised.

*

Leah wasn’t certain if it had been Charles or if it was some other symptom, but Bran kept her up most of the night and she woke late, and tired, mid-morning. She heard the shower going, which was a good sign. Tempted as she was to go to her own bathroom, she stumbled into his, yawning, and joined him.

“Morning,” he said, kissing her, a strange sensation now that his facial hair was really growing in. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” she asked, with another bone-cracking yawn. She rubbed her cheek against his, enjoying the prickles.

Bran winced and passed her the shampoo. “You haven’t looked in the mirror, have you?”

“No.” Resigned to what she assumed was a veritable pattern of healing bite marks across her body, Leah soaped up her hair and then rinsed whilst Bran very helpfully scrubbed her back. “You’re feeling better, though?”

“I think I’m just getting used to it.”

“It did take a couple of weeks last time.”

“More like four.”

“What do you mean? I thought you were fine after two? I went to Helena with Peggy for her art exhibition after two weeks,” she recalled.

“Mmm,” Bran said.

She turned around. He poured conditioner into her hand and she massaged it into the length of her hair. “Do you mean to tell me you weren’t okay?”

“Do you remember coming back from Helena?”

“Yes, I brought— oh, we had sex in your office.” She was an idiot. Leah sighed with resignation. “You were pretending you were fine.”

Bran gave her the ‘turn around’ gesture with his fingers and then took her comb from the nook where she kept it. He started to de-tangle her hair. “I’ve been thinking about what Asil said.”

She grumbled. Four weeks, not two. He had lied to her. _Again_.

“And he is right. It’s similar to what it was like when we were first mated.”

Leah raised her eyebrows. It was annoying when Asil was ‘right’. “Given I don’t recall needing to keep you in my sight when we were first mated, I take it this is a male-only thing?”

“You take it correctly.”

“Why are you getting it again? And again,” she added.

“I don’t know. I’m assuming something to do with what happened in Spokane.”

“Angry pacing, from what you told me.”

Her husband put the comb back down and nudged her under the water again. He came with her, running his hands up her sides so he could trace her breasts. “It was a little more than that.”

“Oh, how you do surprise me,” Leah said drily, leaning into his hands.

“Heh,” Bran said, laughing. He kissed her, then, water pouring over their faces so Leah had to break the kiss to breathe through her mouth. Impatiently, he pushed her against the cold tile, out of the direct spray, slanting his lips across hers, his hands roving over her body. He pulled back abruptly. “Kelpies?”

She had to stop herself chasing his lips and really focus on what he had asked, driven by the sudden piercing directness in his eyes. “Yes. Charles and Anna have gone to Seattle.”

“Damnation.” Bran hurried out of the shower, grabbing a towel as he went.

Leah finished off her shower on her own, vaguely peeved.

*

She took her time dressing and also dried her hair properly using a barrel brush, which felt vaguely normal. Leah assumed from the sounds downstairs that Bran had called Seattle to speak to Angus and then Charles to impart some Kelpie wisdom. He would be angry at himself for being distracted last night, she had no doubt. She also expected he would take this out on her so she descended the stairs with an anticipatory doom settling on her chest.

She could still hear him in his office, so she went into the kitchen to get herself some breakfast. She was eating a bowl of granola and sliced banana when he came to get her.

“What are you doing?” Bran demanded.

She looked down at her bowl, picked it up, looked at it from several angles. “Um. I _appear_ to be eating breakfast.”

“Very funny. Would you get in my office, please?”

In his office, she annoyed him further by asking if she could charge her iPad and _then_ by trying to move her chair closer to a plug so that she could still use it whilst it was charging. He told her off for making noise and suggested she read a book instead.

“I don’t _want_ to read a book,” she muttered. “I’m going to get my phone.”

Bran said nothing, just made a rumbling, threatening noise that she chose to ignore.

Her cell phone had several missed calls on it from Charles from the previous night and then a message from Anna that morning. _Is it possible Charles walked in on you and Bran yesterday? He is refusing to say anything and gets shifty when I ask why you weren’t answering your phones._

Leah replied. _Not quite._ _What did Bran have to say about the kelpies?_

_Kelpies are fond of luring witch-born to their deaths and they are particularly susceptible. Cheery stuff._

She winced. No wonder he was pissed. _Anything you can do to protect Charles?_

 _Keep our mate bond wide open._ This was followed by the emoji with the blushing cheeks. Leah could only assume a direct conduit to your mate was not appealing on a day to day basis. She’d heard – overheard, more like – that the only circumstances where a mated couple might do so would be in bed. Naturally, she and Bran had never explored that facility. Novelty aside, she didn’t really want to have surround-sound, _confirmed_ knowledge of what he thought of her. 

Leah occupied herself for the rest of the morning by buying some expensive high heels online and then contemplated buying new lingerie. She amused herself by screenshot-ing some options and emailing them to Bran for his opinion. She heard him hit the delete key angrily each time she sent one.

Given they had got up so late, they had a correspondingly late lunch. She watched him make a risotto and they sat silently opposite each other, eating.

“This is nice, thank you,” Leah said quietly, the pressure to thank him for a meal overwhelming her bad mood.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, equally constrained by manners.

She sought for a safe topic. “Maybe we could go for a walk this afternoon.”

Bran’s nose flared. “I don’t want to be out of signal range.”

There were plenty of walks they could do that would keep cell phone signal. And Anna would keep Charles safe. But Leah didn’t want to accidentally trigger an argument that she hadn’t foreseen so she said nothing. She finished her meal quietly and then tidied up the kitchen whilst he sat and watched her, looking tired and – frankly – miserable.

 _Last_ time she had become angry because she had interpreted this misery as a reflection of how he felt being ‘tied’ to her. She knew – as they had argued extensively about this – that this wasn’t the case. He would have been equally frustrated if it had been someone he loved, platonic or otherwise. He felt trapped and out of control. No wolf enjoyed that and her mate hated it more than most.

She closed the dishwasher and put it on the Eco setting. “It _will_ get better,” Leah said, followed, unthinkingly with, “And, I guess, if the worst comes to worse, I’ll just… never leave Aspen Creek again.”

Even as she said it, she felt the pressure in her chest build. The same pressure she had dreamed of. No, she didn’t like that, didn’t like that one bit.

Bran stood, pushing the kitchen stool back, screeching across the tiles. He drew her to him, held her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

Leah was breathing through the sudden tension in her body. “It’s fine,” she said, lying obviously. Words started to tumble from her mouth. “I mean. That’s an exaggeration. You… were fine after a few weeks. Kind of? I can still go to Helena and Yellowstone. Not far, obviously. But still. Other places.” She started to feel weirdly hot. And… dizzy?

Bran grabbed her, suddenly. “Okay, let’s sit down.” He hoisted her up onto a stool, tucked her feet onto the foot rest. “Head between your legs.”

She did so, her head dropping between her knees quite heavily. “Feel funny.” Her words were thick, merging together.

“You’re, I think, you’re having a panic attack.” He rested his hand on the back of her neck. “Just keep breathing deeply.”

Leah dangled her arms down and breathed as instructed. _In and out. In and out_. “How long do I have to stay like this?”

“Until it stops feeling like you want to faint.”

“I was going to faint?” Never _in her life_ had she fainted. Passed out, yes, from a head wound or blood loss. But fainted like a damsel in distress? _Never_.

“Judging from the way your eyes were rolling back in your head, yes.”

After a minute or so, it began to feel more uncomfortable keeping the folded up position so she pushed herself up to sitting slowly. She felt the blood rush back down from her face but otherwise didn’t feel quite as strange as before. Bran was standing in front of her, arms crossed, expression his usual impenetrable shield. She was embarrassed. “Sorry.”

The scowl returned. “Don’t apologize. I’ve put you in an intolerable position.”

“Please, don’t,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “I can’t take this again. We just need to work on a solution. If it’s not just waiting it out until it’s better, is there something else we could be doing? You said you thought it’s something to do with thinking I might be harmed. What about if I,” she swallowed, “went around with another wolf from our pack?”

Bran growled. “Asil?”

“No, not Asil. Obviously,” she said. Because Asil, apparently, wanted to fuck her. A topic for another time. “Juste, perhaps. Tag?”

Bran seemed to be at least thinking this through. “We could test it,” he said, reluctantly. Then, “I have another idea.”

She brightened. “I’m all ears.”

“We could open the mating bond.”

*

Four circular arguments later, Leah was sitting in his office, sniffling, and Bran had drunk nearly a pint of whiskey, a last resort they had discovered had some effectiveness the previous time.

“I don’t _dislike_ you,” he muttered, combing his hands through his hair so it was sticking straight up. “Where did you get the idea that I _dislike_ you?”

Leah used her fingers to stop her bottom lip from wobbling. “Please stop talking about it.”

“I just— oh never mind,” her husband said, taking another gulp from his glass. He exhaled and rubbed a hand vigorously over his face. “Asil is right. It’s an issue that arises when some couples first mate. It’s… a trust thing.”

“You’ve stopped _trusting_ me?” Then, in a rising, pained voice, “ _He’s_ stopped trusting me?”

The _only_ thing she had clung to after he had returned from that godforsaken hotel was that the monster, the wolf that Bran so hated, had been the one to defend her. The one who wanted to protect her from Charles’s killing blow. _He_ had believed in her loyalty. Bran might apparently be willing to hop on a plane, blithely unconcerned with her imminent death, but the wolf hadn’t.

She started to cry then. Not just a few delicate teardrops, no, this was proper crying, the kind that involved sucking in whooping breaths and snot and uncontrollable waterworks. Leah was not an attractive crier and normally she really didn’t cry at all, tears being a very obvious sign of weakness. She was just tired, that was it. And this was simply the last straw.

Bran shouted at her to stop crying because his reaction to her emotions had never been normal. Naturally, this made it worse because once the faucet was on, there was apparently no turning it off. He started to pull at his hair, eyes shimmering gold and back to hazel again. Desperate to take back some control, she stuffed the sleeve of her sweater into her mouth, trying to stifle the noises she was making. Over the sounds of her sobbing, she could hear the rumbling awfulness that was Bran’s monster protesting.

“You have to calm down, Leah. It’s making me crazy,” Bran whispered, finally, coming to kneel in front of her.

“I’m _trying_ ,” Leah hiccupped, shoulders heaving. Did he think she wanted this?

Rivers of salty water were flowing down her face. He wiped at them fruitlessly and then laid his head in her lap. “Please stop,” he begged.

She did her best, trying to think of other things. Murderous things. She kept circling back to the miserable truth. “Okay,” she said, pausing for a hiccup. “You can open the mating bond. It can’t,” another hiccup, “it can’t be worse than this.” Her face crumpled again. Oh god this was so humiliating.

“It’s not going to be worse. Leah. Please.” He kissed her thigh, then pulled her off the armchair onto the ground, half in his lap, half on the floor. It was awkward and uncomfortable and she was crying and hiccupping too much. She tried to get away from him – she would die, actually _die_ of mortification later – and demanded that he stop looking at her.

They ended up with her facing the fireplace and him half turned away from her, pressed against her back, his arm around her shoulders and his nose at the back of her neck. Every breath she took ended with a small shudder which he seemed to mirror. “This sucks,” she said.

He nodded.

“Worse than last time,” she added.

“No, there was the part where you stabbed me,” he reminded her.

Leah smiled. Then a hiccup snuck up on her. “You say that but this time I nearly killed you with a lamp.”

Bran scoffed. “You didn’t even _touch_ me this time.”

“That could be rectified.”

He laughed, properly, if a little weakly. The hairs on the back of her neck fluttered. “You can hit me with a lamp any time you like, Leah.”

She grumbled a bit. It wasn’t like she wanted to hurt him. She leaned against him more fully. It was bizarre how he could hurt her and yet he was also the one she sought comfort from afterwards. The contrariness of love. “So, what do you have to do to open the mating bond? What should I expect?”

“It differs for everyone. But, if you’ll listen to me carefully, I want to explain why I’m going to do it.”

She swallowed. “I’m listening.”

“I need to open the bond to clear up any _misunderstandings_ that might have arisen.”

Leah nodded. She made the easy leap – his wolf needed to see that she was loyal and trustworthy. Bran must have been pretty convincing in the hotel room. She swallowed again. It was more difficult because a lump had formed in her throat. “May I have some of your whiskey?”

He got up and poured them both a big glass. “Drink it fast,” he suggested, “so you get some of the impact.”

She did so. It was disgusting. She gasped when she was halfway through. “Couldn’t – I mean, what’s wrong with vodka?”

“Ran out. Didn’t replace it from last time.” Bran used his finger to tilt up the glass to her mouth. “Finish it.”

She did so and put the glass down on the hearth. She crossed her legs and sat facing him expectantly. “Okay.” She licked her lips, ignoring the way his eyes followed her tongue. “Let’s do this.”

At the moment, their mating bond was something like the pack bonds she had with the rest of the pack – a shimmering thing that tied her more strongly to Bran. Something through which she could pull his clout, like she did, and sense where he was. She had imagined, when she had imagined it, that an open mating bond would be something bigger than that. Stronger. Overwhelming.

And it was certainly that. One moment, she was staring at her husband and mate – a man she considered to be the best of all men, flawed even as he was. And then she was suddenly looking at herself. All red-eyed, tear-encrusted, five foot eight inches of herself. Did her hair really look so blonde to him? Her eyes that blue? It was like looking at photographs that Kara took for social media. Airbrushed and glossy, nothing like the reflection she saw in the mirror every day. And, Good Lord, but he felt so _guilty_ thinking she was beautiful. There was a weight of guilt and, beneath that, a big, pressingly dark desire for her. _The wolf, that was the wolf_ , she realized, tasting metal at the back of her mouth. The wolf thought she was— mmm, okay, best she not look to closely at that, she decided, nervously. There were a lot of things the wolf wanted that— _ooof_.

She felt herself flush, saw herself flush. Watched herself put her fingers to her lips, felt her lips, felt Bran feeling her lips. Bran wanted to kiss her, wanted to pour himself into her. He wanted to make love to her on the floor of his office, in front of the fire. He had hurt her and he hated himself. More guilt. Great. Guilty for wanting her, guilty for loving her—

Oh God, she suddenly wondered what Bran was seeing of himself. Feeling from her. Was it the same thing or was he seeing what she was thinking and feeling? Did he see the same desire for him or was it the softer warmth of the love she had for him? The moments of gentleness she felt, the only man who had ever made her feel gentle about anything. She had never cared that way before, never had that womanly feeling, that maternal desire to look after flesh that wasn’t her own. Except maybe a child with his eyes and her hair? The thought popped up out of nowhere, took her out. Took _him_ out. 

_Ah_ , that hurt him. She felt that. Her hand went to her chest, where it hurt her, too. _No,_ she told him, her words echoing into a void. _That’s not what I want. I’m not like that._ It felt like a lie, a not-lie. A painful truth and at the same time a not-truth. She was getting confused, thoughts rushing at her from every angle.

 _Stop this, Leah_ , she told herself. _Stop this._

Mental bonds were about control. She couldn’t just flail around helplessly. She had to use her instincts. Slowly, she forced herself from his body, until she was looking at her mate again. He looked stricken.

She realized he had revealed something he hadn’t wanted to. “You asshole,” she said.

He reeled back. “What?”

Leah hit his arm, an open-palm slap, no real force behind it. She wasn’t suicidal enough to accost her mate when his control was frayed. “When you were going to tell me you’ve decided to love me?”

“Oh, that,” Bran said, wincing and rubbing his arm.

“ _Oh that_ ,” she mimicked, half shrieking. “Not important, was it?” She hit him again, this time using her fist. “ _Asshole_.”

“If you could stop doing that, for both our sakes, I would appreciate it,” he growled, gold flashing through his eyes.

Leah sat on her hands. She was feverish with fury. Her very eyes felt hot with it. He loved her and had no doubt _no intention_ of telling her. “You absolute asshole.”

“ _Enough_.” He hit the word with his own clout and it was her turn to reel backwards. Bran pinched the bridge of his nose and took a couple of deep breaths. “I was going to tell you. When the moment was appropriate.”

She made a long, low noise of frustration. Really, the urge to beat him with the poker was almost overwhelming. She had, consciously, loved him for more than half of her life and he was waiting for the _appropriate moment_ to reciprocate. It was so unbelievably Bran.

They sat in furious silence for a while longer, both of them grinding their teeth. This was the way of their love, apparently.

Then, scowling ferociously, Bran broke the silence with a bitter, “I know what’s happened. Why I am this way.”

“Do tell,” she said nastily.

“It’s _your_ wolf. She’s stopped trusting me.”

Leah shook her head in immediate denial. Both Leah and her wolf had been eternally loyal to Bran. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bran.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

Her mate was clearly on an infuriating roll. “You know it doesn’t work like that for me.”

Leah could feel herself starting to bubble with renewed anger. She couldn’t let it. She blew out a breath. Then another, exercising all those methods she had read in magazines over the years to calm tempers. _Breathe in._ So he loved her. _Breathe out._ There would be time to look at that later. _Breathe in_. She had to put that aside and move on. _Breathe out._ “That’s what you saw? In my head?”

He nodded.

“Why… did you see _why_?” she asked, still not really believing it. Trust was a fundamental truth of the mating bond.

Bran shuffled forward until their knees were touching. “Before I went to Europe, we argued.”

She half-groaned. “Oh, do we have to, Bran?”

He ignored her, pressing on. “We argued. Badly. You’ll agree it was a low point.”

Very low. It had actually been close to the worst fight they had ever had and they’d certainly had some doozies. Of course, it had been about _her_. “You drop everything for her,” Leah said, helplessly. 

Bran threw up a hand. “She’s like a daughter to me, Leah, how many— Ah, here we go again. Let’s not rehash the details.”

“ _Fine_.” It was not fine. “We argued. You walked out and didn’t come back. You didn’t say goodbye. You didn’t answer your phone, oh,” she said, snippily, “unless _Charles_ was calling you.”

Leah could see that Bran was doing his best to keep calm, as well. His breathing was very deep and even, his hands flexed on his knees. Oddly that made her feel better. If he wasn’t calm, it justified her own anger. “You’re right. I was very angry with you. I was also, brace yourself, very worried for Mercedes who had been kidnapped by a vampire and is very easy to kill. And I thought you had been betraying me for years.” He closed his eyes for a long moment and held his breath. On the exhale he opened his eyes and within them was a world of pain. “I thought— I thought it was better to be angry.”

The lump from her earlier hysterics was re-forming, pushing past her anger. Not good. Often, she had wondered what would have happened if Charles hadn’t been _Charles_ and hadn’t got to the bottom of their betrayal. If he had simply executed Leah for his father’s suspicions and the last words they had ever exchanged had been hateful ones.

She lowered her face to her knee and kept it there. “Asshole,” she whispered.

Bran put his hand on the top of her head. “Then, when I came home after, I told you I thought you had betrayed the pack and that Charles would have to kill you. That I had thought it for weeks. That I had laid beside you in your bed, thinking you were a traitor.”

A small noise escaped from her. She smothered it, pressing her mouth against the denim of her jeans. This, too, she had thought of. She had taken Bran into her body and had no idea he had these horrible thoughts about her. That he could lie to her like that. It was sickening. “Do we have to go over this?” she asked, a quiver in her voice.

“I knew I had hurt you.” He stroked his hand over her hair. “I didn’t realize I had broken your trust.”

Slowly, she lifted her head. Something was ringing true now. “My trust,” she murmured. “Or _her_ trust.”

“Her trust,” he agreed, meeting her gaze earnestly. 

Leah’s wolf was a mass of instincts, often with very little cohesion. In her human form, things either felt _right_ or they felt _not-right_ and sometimes she might get a glimpse from the spirit inside of her as to why. Usually it was if she felt threatened in some way - hierarchically or physically.

As she looked at her mate, she tried to see him with her wolf’s eyes. He was still her mate, in the technical sense, she could feel that. But he was correct. There was something _not-right_ that she wouldn’t necessarily have noticed before. For Leah, things had been _not-right_ since that first moment she realized she loved him and there would forever be an imbalance in their relationship.

She sat up. “What has her mistrusting you got to do with what’s happening?”

Bran tapped a finger on her chest. “She stopped trusting me, because she saw my accusation as a betrayal, which my wolf knows. So every time you go away, he thinks you’re leaving me. Because you can.”

Hurriedly, Leah covered his hand, pressed it over her heart. She forgot everything in her need to reassured him. “I would _never_ — I would never leave you. Either of you. I promise.”

Bran’s eyes were smiling. “Because _you_ love me. Your wolf stays for that alone.” He took her face in his hands. “I have to make her trust me again. If you want to stay.”

“I want to stay,” Leah said quickly. There was no question about it. “What do we do? I— it was automatic, last time.” Two hundred years ago, she had said ‘yes’ after mere weeks of knowing him and then they had lain together. The mating bond had fallen into place immediately.

Bran nodded. “It will be different. If you want to stay—”

“Stop _saying_ that!”

“If you want to stay,” he repeated, a glutton for punishment, “I have to re-earn your trust.”

She shook her head. “ _Her_ trust,” she insisted. “So, how do we do that, then?”

“The way anyone else does, I suppose. Time and effort.” At her bemused expression – that was it? That was all he had? - Bran shrugged and rose to his feet. He held out his hand to her. “Let’s deal with it in the morning.”

*

Exhausted, Leah slept solidly to breakfast the following morning and, judging from the relaxed weight at her back, so did Bran. She turned to look at him, catching his face briefly in repose before he woke under her gaze and opened his eyes. “Creepy,” he told her, with a smile.

“You _don’t_ look angelic whilst you sleep. Oh, you probably meant that,” she reflected suddenly. She knew for a fact now that he had an overly flattering view of herself. And he loved her. _She_ thought he was the most handsome man in the world.

“What did you think I meant?”

“I don’t know, something cryptic.” She rolled onto her front and stretched, pointing her toes and fingers in the opposite direction, feeling her muscles unwind before folding her hands under her cheek. “Also, at some point I’d like to discuss the kinky things your wolf would like to do to me. And I do mean _to me._ ”

Bran’s eyes bulged just a little. “I— would like to table that conversation for another time. Or decade.”

Leah snorted. Bran picked up his cell phone. She knew he had a message from Charles just from the way his expression changed minutely. “Is he all right?”

“Yes. They saw the kelpie last night and it led he and Angus on a merry chase.”

Leah frowned. “Where was Anna?” Anna – and the mating bond – was supposed to be what would keep Charles safe. Not that she particularly cared. Her desire to keep Charles from harm was explicitly related to how much his hurt would affect his father, rather than any real affection for Charles.

“My question exactly,” Bran said, tapping a quick response that would no doubt irritate Charles. When he was done, he put his phone to one side and folded his hands on his stomach. “What would you like to do today?”

“I?” she repeated.

“You, yes. What would you like to do?”

Oh yes, she remembered. _Time and effort_. “Well. I’ve some chores. I should really check in with last year’s Changes. I’ve got to review my share of _this_ year’s proposed Changes.” She, Charles and Bran made the final decision on who went through to be Changed by Bran. She was usually the more cautious vote. Or, as Bran put it, ‘paranoid and suspicious’.

“How about I do the chores so you can make the phone calls,” Bran suggested, “and then we both review your share of the proposed Changes.”

She smiled. If this was the process of reigniting her wolf’s trust in him, she was already enjoying it. “That sounds good.”

“And this afternoon, maybe we could go for a hike? A proper one. Like we used to,” he added, as if she hadn’t got the message.

Leah rubbed her legs together happily. “I’d like that as well.”

“Good.” He sat up and made to swivel his legs over the side of the bed. She grabbed him by the wrist.

“Oh, no, first we’re going to fool around,” Leah told her husband sternly. More than twelve hours since she had found out he loved her and she’d yet to _make love_ with him. It was practically a crime.

At his big smile, she tugged him, willingly, over her and opened her mouth for his kiss. 

*

Leah made most of the phone calls to last year’s newly Changed outside, the bi-fold doors to the living room open so Bran could hear her whilst he went through the list of chores she had set him. She might have been a little more thorough that she truly intended to be and that _might_ have been because she didn’t think he had ever cleaned an oven before. She’d heard him gagging over the chemicals, despite her warnings.

One of the added benefits of Leah’s responsibility to check-in with the new werewolves was the gossip she gathered about packs who might not otherwise be on Bran’s radar. It give her no little pleasure to have this insight to report back on.

“Gray’s wife is finally divorcing him,” she announced, coming back inside to where Bran was stripping the covers from their couches. She started to do the third one. The covers were washable – a must for any werewolf household – and she tried to clean them once a month or they really did start to smell.

“Oh, really,” Bran said, pretending as if he didn’t like gossip as much as she did.

“He was, and I cannot believe I’m saying this, _sleeping with the nanny_.”

Her husband grunted. “I hope she rinses him.”

It was novel to be on the side of the human wife but in Leah’s case it was entirely a reflection of the loathing she felt for Gray. They had only a few werewolves who came from a long ‘line’ of werewolves and behaved as if they were some kind of aristocracy, as if their genetics somehow made them more superior. Like his father and grandfather before him, Gray truly believed his blood meant his offspring were more likely to be successfully Changed. The fact that Gray’s older brother and sister had died at their father’s teeth and claws and _failed_ to Change impacted this belief little.

Begrudgingly, apart from this erroneous belief in his superiority, and his inability to keep it in his pants, Leah admitted that Gray was otherwise a good Alpha. She had to remind herself of this frequently. Being an asshole did not equal a death sentence.

They tossed the covers on a wash and then Leah laid out the fifteen files Charles had given her to review on the dining table. Its cleanliness reminded her that no one from the pack had been by. “Did you tell everyone to stay away?” she asked, curious.

Bran sat down opposite her. “I think Asil did.”

“Ah. I wonder what he told them.”

He tilted his head to one side. “Judging from the general amusement I felt, something you will find personally very irritating.”

Leah was glad she didn’t pay such particular attention to the minutiae of the pack bonds. She picked up her pencil and opened the first file.

She found it quite difficult to concentrate. It was a task she had carried out many times before, so that wasn’t the problem. Across from her, Bran was quiet and unobtrusively reading but each time she glanced up to look at him, she found herself reeling with the new knowledge gleaned in the last day. 

All she had ever wanted – ‘ever’ being only a slight exaggeration unfortunately – was to be loved by Bran. She had married and mated him expecting nothing and grown to want it all. To be finally given what she had wanted for so long was… well, it was like she couldn’t quite take it in. She found herself wanting to ask him to re-open the mating bond so she could have another poke around in his head. And why was he so guilty, anyway? Was it because of her, his first mate, the incomparable Blue Jay Woman? Did his first mate haunt him like she did Leah?

 _No_ , Leah told herself, firmly, squashing the usual spark of jealousy she felt for a two-hundred-years-dead woman. That didn’t feel right. It was something else.

Calmly, Bran turned a page.

Leah also told herself, again with a sense of irritation at her own inability to just accept her lot, that it didn’t matter. He loved her. Her cold-hearted, selfish husband loved her, his difficult and jealous wife. What a pair they made.

She turned her attention back to the file in front of her. A woman. She was unlikely to survive, which was a depressing fact to consider when reading about her life. Unusually, she wasn’t actually dying. Her medical report stated she was healthy for her age, if a few pounds overweight. She was fifty-three years old, unmarried, no children. Her parents were gone and she had no siblings. She was financially stable and her psychiatric testing had come back reasonably normal, given the context that she was almost certainly applying to kill herself. In the five factor personality test that they used, she scored high on extraversion – not unusual – and openness, middling on other factors. She was, and this amused Leah, a perfect candidate.

She wrote at the top of the page. SUSPICIOUSLY PERFECT.

Leah opened the next file.

It was ultimately quite depressing reading. Not just because of the lives that hung in the balance but because of the personal cost to her mate. The build up to the Hunter’s Moon had the strongest pull and consequentially Bran had found that more werewolves were successfully Changed around that time. Unlike others, Bran was physically, or magically, capable of turning more than one wolf. He could manage up to five or six, though it would drain him, which also meant he was the one who suffered more failures. Each year, she tried to whittle down the numbers that he Changed personally – a subject that often led to a screaming disagreement – and each year she was overruled. He would hurt himself if it meant bringing more werewolves into the fold.

“I’ll be fine,” Bran murmured.

She glanced up. “Did I say something out loud?”

“No, but you were sighing soulfully so I took a guess.” The corners of his mouth pressed in. “I’ll be fine.”

“I hate it.” Leah slapped the file closed and leaned back against her chair. “I hate everything about it.”

Bran was not rising to the bait. “I know you do.”

There was little more they could say on the topic that hadn’t been said before. She sighed again and reached for the final file. It was going to be a man, she guessed, before she had already opened the folder. There were always fewer women. Refreshingly, none of the candidates had been humans she knew, who wanted the Marrok to Change them, their trust in him an additional burden he had to carry. She paused, one finger under the off-white cardboard holder. “I don’t really understand. _I_ still trust you. Why doesn’t she?”

Bran cleared his throat. “Trust is a many faceted thing.”

He was being unnecessarily cryptic. “So?” she prompted.

“There are some things even you don’t trust me with.”

Baffled, she turned her palms upwards on the table. She trusted him with her life. “Like what?” she asked, promptly walking into his trap.

Bran closed the folder and rested his hands on it, looking at her placidly. “Let’s experiment. Imagine for a moment Mercedes had to move back to Aspen Creek for some reason and I decide she would be safest in our guest room.” Leah’s lip curled almost automatically and Bran raised a hand. “And _then_ I ask you to go to Europe for me. Say, an issue in the British Isles needs resolving. It’s at least a two-week trip. Tell me now how trustworthy you think me.”

Very, very slowly, holding her breath, Leah pressed herself back against her chair. The objective here was not to lose her temper or otherwise react poorly to this imagined scenario. An imagined _and_ unimaginable scenario. “I… wouldn’t be happy,” she admitted, exhaling hard and then sucking in a deep breath, trying to contain herself and the writhing jealousy within her.

His smile was entirely fake. “But you would trust me, in this scenario, of course? Alone in the house with Mercedes without you. Say that you would.”

Leah narrowed her eyes. He thought he was so clever. “I’m not having this argument with you again. You know well that the circumstances aren’t that simple and I don’t _really_ believe this is about trust but about context.” For two hundred years he had refused to love her but had managed to take plenty of other women, platonically, he claimed, into his heart. It would drive any woman mad. “But for the sake of your point, no, I wouldn’t trust you completely in this scenario. But I contest that no woman would have in our circumstances.”

“So you trust me in _almost_ all things.” And though he was the one who had made this point, who had created this scenario, Bran was not happy about it. “ _She_ , your wolf, doesn’t trust me with your wellbeing any longer and that is ultimately the fundamental tenant of the bond. She feels I have failed you too many times. She is right.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Then, she is even more of a drama queen than I am. And I cannot believe you gleaned all this from opening the mating bond for two minutes when I don’t know it at all.”

“Let’s just say, I have a particular expertise in translating your wolf.” At her expression, Bran swayed his head a little, gave her an inch more explanation. “And I knew what I was looking for.”

“Fine. And if you ask me that question about Mercedes a year from now, my answer might be different.” She bared her teeth at him. “Because of the _context_.”

Her mate bared his teeth right back. “I shall certainly do so.”

Conversation done and argument postponed, Bran reopened his file and picked up his pen and she did the same with hers. Or at least tried to. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he circled the note she had written at the top of the page and then underlined ‘suspiciously’ - and then tossed the folder to one side. He stared at the one she was attempting to read, clicking his pen nib in and out, waiting for her to finish with it.

Leah tried to focus on the words. _Graduated magna cum laude_ _from Northwestern_. Kara was looking at Northwestern. She was thinking about studying Psychology, a field of study Anna greatly encouraged, no doubt with the hope that one day they could have werewolf therapists who were qualified to deal with the issues that seemed to arise between man and wolf spirit. Leah had always thought this sounded like nonsense – surely it was just a question of self awareness? – but now she appeared to have developed her own problem.

She glanced up again. Bran was turning the pen in his fingers, staring down at it. Whilst she felt no different, she was hurting him. She had caused his wolf unrest and Bran to lose his much vaunted control.

They needed to fix this. Not just so that Leah could leave town occasionally.

Leah closed the file. She hadn’t finished reading it. Couldn’t. “I’ll read this later. Let’s go for a walk.”

*

They walked in silence for the first few miles, falling into the long-ingrained patterns of their past. When she had moved to Aspen Creek to be with him, he had taken the time to familiarize her with the area, very much as a training exercise. Part of that had been walking quietly on two feet, not four, listening to the environment, learning the different sounds of the nature around her. She’d grown up on the East coast and whilst hadn’t been raised in a city, she had been Changed in a pack that had been less rural than Aspen Creek. Bears had not been part of her day to day life.

At the time, she had found Bran very hard work. He talked little to her, certainly not about personal matters. He and his sons spoke to each other mostly in Welsh, a deliberate tactic to keep her from their conversations. She had been regularly dismissed – a mere female, present only for her usefulness in restraining Bran’s monster and to put food on the table. 

Over time, Leah had laboriously learnt Welsh. There had been some in the pack who had been kind enough to help her – Devon, even Tag, would let her practice her halting attempts. She had slowly insinuated herself into Bran’s life. It helped that for the first century they had shared a bedroom and a bed. Sometimes, post-coital Bran could be persuaded into exchanging the odd word or two. Sometimes she could make him laugh.

The pack had grown and with it Bran’s responsibilities as the Marrok. Samuel had begrudgingly taught Leah how to fight with her fists as well as her claws. Tag had taught her how to shoot. She had become the kind of mate that the Marrok needed, if not wanted. A woman who could defend his home, his people. They had built and moved into the big house and then things had changed again. Suddenly she had her own money, instead of the household allowance Bran had given her. There was travel, not just within North America but further afield to places she had only heard of. Cars. Planes. World wars and technology. They both became busy in a way that meant they no longer went for hikes together. Leah started running every day. Bran would go away, sometimes for weeks. At some point amongst this, these decades of change, she fell in love with him.

And now he loved her too.

So thinking, she walked a little faster to catch up with him. He gave her a distracted smile and then followed the sight of two Nuthatches flying above them. She hopped over a tree branch and then he caught her elbow. “The child. The baby,” he began.

Leah shook her head. She had been expecting him to bring it up. “No. That’s— I’m not _pining_ ,” she explained hurriedly. “There is no place in our lives for a child.”

“Oh, good.” Bran’s eyes fluttered closed and then opened again. He gave her a smile that held a whisper of heartbreak accompanied by relief. “I’m not sure that is something I could currently take on board.”

She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “All right. I’ll choose not to be offended.”

In a purely academic way, Leah had imagined before what would happen if one day she had told him she wanted a child. It was technically possible, if one had the funds for surrogacy – which they did. She supposed it was encouraging that Bran’s first response wasn’t quite a vehement ‘no’. Perhaps it was something they might revisit one day. Things changed.

Bran tugged at her hair and then released her. “I’m sorry, too, about earlier.”

“Which part?”

“The, ah, scenario. I was… mean. Not the sort of behavior that will demonstrate I’m to be trusted again,” he acknowledged.

She grunted. This was true. But Mercedes was a difficult topic between them, one of the few they really dug at each other over. A scab on a wound that never healed. “It’s… fine. We are both at fault there. You’re forgiven.” Leah brightened, fully prepared to bring up his suspicions about Asil in return but her mate knew her too well. He spun her around and placed his hand over her mouth. 

“Do not,” he ordered.

She licked his palm, childishly. “Why not?” she said, her voice muffled but easily understandable.

“I know it is something you will relish but I beg of you, for my sanity, and for his, you will not give in and use it to torment either one of us. It will not, cannot, end well. For the sake of the pack, I know this, Leah. I should not have said anything.” He pressed their foreheads together. “Please heed me on this.”

“Boring!” she told his hand, narrowing her eyes at the blurriness of his face up close.

“Please.”

“Fine. I won’t.” 

He released her for the second time, nodded, and then continued on.

Leah stomped sulkily after him for half an hour, thinking only Bran would give her the weapon she needed to really mess with Asil and _then_ take firmly it away from her. To appease herself, she watched his butt in his jeans for a little while, which did cheer her up some. Then they stopped for a snack.

She chewed her jerky and investigated some mushrooms clustered at the base of a tree. Young destroying angel, she thought. Not to be confused with the edible puffball. She had learnt that the hard way. “Remember when I poisoned you all,” she called to him.

“Vividly.”

The stew she had made would have killed a human. Thankfully, Bran, Samuel and Tag had simply had an unpleasant night. She hadn’t eaten anything – purely coincidentally – but had been mortified. For years afterwards, Tag had avoided anything she cooked with mushrooms, poking around her meals with irritating suspicion. Even later still, but when he’d still been able to visit town, he’d bought her a book from a thrift store on identifying mushrooms for her birthday. Long enough time had passed between the incidents that she had found this amusing.

Leah wandered back to Bran, sitting on a log and watching her unashamedly. She was almost getting used to it. “What if it takes two centuries,” she said, voicing a dour thought she’d been struggling with.

Bran squinted up at her, then lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Here in the bright light they were very green, thickly lashed in that way some men had. “Then we’ll probably kill one another before your wolf likes me again.”

She snorted. “Reassuring.”

“Of course, _actually_ , you’d have to kill me first,” Bran said with an insouciant grin. “Because otherwise no one would survive me.”

She swallowed the briefest hint of metallic-tasting fear and rested her hands on his shoulders. “How could I forget,” she remarked quietly. Because of course _Bran’s_ love came with the possibility of world-destroying violence now, in the event of her untimely death. It was a responsibility she didn’t like to dwell on.

“Mmm.” He rested his forehead on her hip briefly, then took the remainder of her jerky clasped between her fingers and popped it into his mouth. “Shall we carry on?”

At the top of Starmer’s Peak, they stopped for another snack and Bran took a call from Charles. They hadn’t done this hike together since well before cell phones were in public usage and Leah, perched on an outcrop of rock, felt a little like a time traveler. She had not yet developed the skill of older wolves to leave the past behind. There was still room in her mind for all the years that had gone before – the highs and the lows, the people who had passed through her life. So much had changed, even between them.

“Yes, we’re fine,” Bran was saying, wandering back towards her as if to include her in the conversation. He picked up the end of her long braid, toyed with it. “We’ll discuss it when you come back.” The wind was brisker up here, just enough noise to carry Charles’s response away. “That’s fine. Take a couple of days. See a show.”

Leah raised her eyebrows. See a show? Sometimes Bran still treated Charles and Anna like honeymooners. Or perhaps that was just her misconception of how relationships were maintained these days. Marriages when she had been born were about the work you did together. Raising families. Building homes. Security. It wasn’t about going to see a show unless that ‘show’ was a community-based entertainment when everyone was expected to come together. Something like a wedding. Or a funeral.

Nowadays, taking ‘time’ together was normal. This walk, this hike, was about her and Bran taking time together. Perhaps they should plan more things like this. Dates. _Vacations_. She’d often read in her magazines that relationships were work. Perhaps this was what they meant. For it to be good, to be better, they had to work at it. 

Bran hung up and sat next to her. After a while, he put his arm around her shoulders and took a deep breath, like he was drawing the clear air into his lungs. “I feel better today,” he announced.

Leah nodded. “Good.” She supposed he would. Now that Bran knew where the problem was, he would always be less frustrated. He had a direction now. A plan.

“We never did really talk about your trip.”

“We did. I told you all about it.”

Bran made a considering noise. “All I remember was you avoiding telling me about Damian.”

She snorted. “That worked well, then,” she said drily. She nudged him, aiming for a teasing tone. “As if I would have an affair with Damian.”

“You like him,” Bran pointed out, seriously.

Leah was surprised. “Oh, so this is a genuine concern, is it?”

Her husband pulled a face. “I have starved you of affection. It’s not the strangest idea that you might seek it elsewhere. I could understand that.”

“Oof.” Uncomfortably, she wiped her hands down on her jeans, looking out across the fir-tipped mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see. He did do that. Or had done that. “Is being extra truthful part of the time and effort approach?”

He nodded. Then, with something of his usual mischievous expression, said, “Fun, isn’t it?”

“In no way whatsoever.” She smiled, however, and nudged him again. She supposed she could be truthful too. “I don’t really think about other men like that.”

Bran was doubtful. “You do flirt with them though.”

“Habit, more than anything. Most of the time I don’t notice I’m doing it,” Leah admitted thoughtfully. It had been a technique her mother had used to get her way. Leah had been shocked, years before, by the vehemence of Asil’s response to what she had considered to be quite a typical male-female interaction. “I can try harder to stop, if it bothers you.”

“I would appreciate that.”

She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. Having now made this offer, she was wondering how she would execute it. It really was almost instinct. How would she know if she was doing it? “You might have to help me,” she added with a wince.

Bran exhaled a laugh. “I can do that. And thank you.”

“If I’d had any idea it bothered you, I wouldn’t have done it.” Then Leah sighed. No. She could be more truthful than that. She knew herself well. “Or maybe I would have done it more.”

He laughed again, this time louder, but softened it by pulling her closer and kissing her head. “Now that I believe.”

Funny – it felt like she had been both teased and rewarded at the same time. She put her arms around him and squeezed. _Starved of affection_ , he’d said. Did that mean this was going to be more normal? Being touched and being allowed to touch? Werewolves were tactile but Bran really only touched her in the bedroom. The rest of the pack… well they simply weren’t an affectionate pack.

Then again, maybe they weren’t an affectionate pack because she and Bran weren’t an affectionate couple. A pack modeled its behaviors on the Alpha pair. Something to think on.

They descended the mountain just as it started to get dark, a fact that made no difference to them as their eyes adjusted to the deepening gloom. The sounds of the forest changed in the dark as the night predators came out to hunt. They stopped to identify an owl, deciding it was the ‘to to to to’ of the increasingly rare Boreal owl, and then as they approached their house from the east, Leah could see it was occupied. Lights were on in the living area and kitchen.

“I’m guessing Tag,” Bran decided.

Yes, that would make sense. Having been ‘warned off’ by Asil, there was a limited time before Tag would have decided to see what was up himself.

Bran’s guess was correct. Tag was on one of their couches, TV on mute, and was snacking on what honestly looked like a packet of ham. _Directly_ out of the packet. “Honestly, Tag. Perhaps a plate? Even a couple of slices of bread?” she asked.

He was unrepentant, if not uninterested, with regards to Leah’s principles. “Good walk?”

“Heard a Boreal owl,” Bran said, hanging up his jacket and then Leah’s when she handed it to him.

Tag’s face brightened considerably. “I’ll make a note on the Field Guide,” he said. He eyed them speculatively. “You don’t look like you’re on the outs.”

“Is that what Asil told you?” Leah asked.

Tag gave them a big grin. “No, he said we wouldn’t enjoy being around you at the moment. Then Charles said much the same thing.”

“Accurate, I suppose.” She glanced at Bran. “Could have been worse.”

“Ask him what else Asil said, then,” Bran advised warningly, wandering into the kitchen. She heard the sucking sound of the refrigerator opening.

Tag grimaced. “He implied something that I’m not repeating in front of you.”

It didn’t take too much imagination to guess what that was. “Typical,” she muttered. She dropped down on the couch adjacent to Tag. “We’re fine. We’re not on the ‘outs’, as you put it.”

“Not at the moment,” Bran said from the kitchen.

She wasn’t going to take that. She didn’t like it when the pack thought their relationship was unstable. “Not at all!”

Tag looked amused. He finished the remains of the ham and put the packet on the coffee table, almost tauntingly. She chose to ignore this. Bran returned with two bowls of the pasta salad he had made for lunch and handed one to her, dropping down next to her on the couch. He then engaged Tag with kelpie talk which meant Leah was treated to a whole host of reminiscing about kelpies of their shared past.

She had been hungry and mostly focused on consuming pasta at a rapid rate, so she only belatedly caught on to the general theme of their stories. She put her hand on Bran’s knee to pause him. “Hold on, _you_ are the reason you know that witch-born are susceptible to kelpies?”

Bran nodded and reached over to scoop up the black olives in her bowl that she was pushing to one side. “Repeatedly lured to my death,” he acknowledged with some resignation. “Admittedly I didn’t realize it was stronger with me until I saw Tag was able to withstand their affects.”

Tag nodded, a wide smile on his face, pleased that there was some way that he could one-up his Alpha.

Uncomfortably, Leah appreciated how worried Bran must have been for Charles. She had been a little blasé, perhaps. “Why do you think it is?”

“I honestly haven’t the faintest idea,” Bran said, shocking her with both his bluntness and his lack of knowledge. She looked to Tag, as if to confirm that this was odd but the older man was similarly unconcerned. Just one of life’s mysteries, then.

She blew out an unsatisfied breath. “Is there an easy way to identify them?” she asked. This was something she should be keeping an eye out for.

“Fish,” they chorused cheerfully.

Leah grunted. “Not useful.”

Bran patted her leg and then left his hand there. She saw Tag’s eyes drift to where they were touching. “Don’t worry yourself. They’re rare. And the last kelpie I came across, I knew it for what it was.”

Tag’s snort was voluminous. “Sure you did, man, and then it tossed you off that cliff.”

Leah squeaked with annoyance. Bran gave Tag a repressing look. “Thank you, Tag, that was very helpful.”

Work apparently done, Tag stood and stretched his arms above his head, as if he had been seated for a long time. “You’re fine. I’m off. Will you send out an email when we’re allowed to return properly?” This last was delivered with a ponderous air, as if he was perhaps thinking that this might be quite soon.

Bran just smiled obliquely. He took her hand in his. “We’ll do that.”

*

The next day, given Bran was ‘feeling better’, they tested out the parameters of this by attempting to have a more ‘normal’ day. Bran would be in his office and she would be in the house but not necessarily in his line of sight.

She thought it was working, in that she had got quite a lot done and hadn’t seen him at all, and said so at lunch. However, Bran’s expression was strained, belying her words. “It’s not working?” she asked plaintively. Leah felt her face fall with her disappointment.

Her husband tilted his head to one side. “I don’t know. I thought the half hour I spent watching you chop logs might be considered a poor use of my time.”

Leah had entirely missed that. She’d had her headphones in, listening to a podcast. “Ah.”

“I also stood outside the laundry listening to you fold towels.”

Double ‘ah’. She sought for a positive. “Not for half an hour, though.”

The corners of Bran’s eyes crinkled. “No, just ten soothing minutes of you singing Taylor Swift to yourself.”

She squirmed with embarrassment. Leah was not, in any sense, a tuneful person and made damn sure the musical Cornicks were never in a position to witness her efforts. It was mortifying know that he had been listening to her. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be; it’s charming and you should sing more,” Bran said dismissively, resting his cheek on his propped up hand. He nibbled on a chicken wing, staring off into the middle distance. Under the table, his ankle was hooked around hers.

Allowing herself to get lost in her thoughts as well, Leah ate her fries, dipping them in the ranch dressing that had pooled to one side of her plate. “What does it feel like?”

Bran hummed, considering her question. “A good question. When you are out of sight, it feels like the moment after you wake up from a night terror that you can’t quite remember but you’re still half-trapped within. Nothing you do reassures you that everything is fine, that you are awake and that the danger has passed.”

“That sounds less than ideal.”

“It’s reasonably uncomfortable,” he murmured, as if he was talking about a sprained wrist. Bran was often blasé about his own pain. “If I don’t reassure myself of your physical presence, or if it’s a long time before I see you, it becomes more debilitating. The wolf gets involved in the need to find you. I’m really not doing a good enough job, as far as he is concerned.”

Because it had never happened to her, Leah couldn’t imagine her wolf taking over in such a way but this was a daily fear Bran lived with.

She had a ridiculous thought and hesitated to say it. “Maybe… maybe it would help if I verbally reassure you? Both of you.” She didn’t want to add – in case he thought it ridiculous - but the reason this idea came to her was because it was something she had once read in an article about traumatized children. When Kara had come to live with them, she had done a lot of reading around the subject trying, in whatever way she could, to make Kara’s life a little easier. She had been determined not to repeat the mistakes of Charles’s childhood and now had more resources at her fingertips to do so. 

Bran waved his fork at her, eyes wide with hope. “I am open to any and all suggestions.”

Which was why, after lunch, she wrapped her arms around him and tried not to laugh as she told him she was going to go upstairs to make their beds and then afterwards make preparations for dinner. “I am not, at any point, going to leave the house or you,” she finished.

Bran nodded, his eyes twinkling with the ridiculousness of the situation. He kissed her enthusiastically. “That’s good to know,” he said, mock-seriously. He squeezed her. “Thank you for telling me.”

She snickered, kissing him back. It might have been silly but it was very nice. “You are very welcome.”

Still smiling, Leah trotted upstairs and this time kept her senses engaged in a way she didn’t usually bother with in their house, listening for any hint that Bran might be sneaking around. She stripped their beds, remade them and then tidied her room and bathroom. Normally, Leah had one of the human women come in once a week to help her but she’d put her off whilst Bran was having some ‘downtime’, which meant she was doing rather more housework than she normally would do.

Not that she resented it. She was very house proud. This house still felt ‘new’ to her and she liked to keep everything shipshape. Besides, with just the two of them, it wasn’t so laborious.

Leah came back downstairs, tossed the dirty laundry in the washer and shrieked when she ran into Bran in the hall outside.

“Sorry,” Bran said, holding up his hands in apology for his stealth. He was half-smiling, as if frightening her amused him. “I just came to say that, ludicrous as it might have seemed, I think your idea is working. So far, it’s been a definite improvement on this morning. I think you should say it again, though.”

“Really?” Leah was – no question about it – ecstatic that she might have helped. She shifted the empty laundry hamper to her other hip and cleared her throat. “Bran, I have no intention of leaving you and also we’re having beef stroganoff for dinner,” she said, seriously.

Bran genuinely seemed to think about it, as if he was conferring with his wolf. Then he nodded. “That sounds great. Thanks.”

She smiled widely, delightedly, at him, warm with the feeling of success. “You’re welcome.”

For a moment, they simply smiled foolishly at each other. Then she watched him walk off, a slight bounce to his step. 

*

By Friday, spurred by an email from Bran, the pack had more or less started to return to the house, appearing for meals, snacks, conversations with the Marrok or simply to ‘watch the big TV’. There was normally something of an informal gathering on Friday evenings, inevitably leading to a late-night run, which Leah usually looked forward to. 

“Do you think you’ll be able to run?” she asked her mate, hopping up onto his desk whilst he re-shelved the books Charles had returned. 

“I don’t think so.”

She wrinkled her nose in disappointment. “I suppose that means I can’t either.”

“We could try it,” Bran said slowly, slotting the last book back. He came to stand between her legs. “It might be fine.”

Leah reached up to touch his cheek. He had shaved that morning, complaining as he did it. He looked younger without the bristles, of course. She loved him however he looked but she did have to admit she enjoyed the physical affect of his stubble on her when they were intimate.

Her thoughts must have shown her face because Bran’s eyes darkened and the air thickened with anticipation. He leaned into her, resting his palms on his desk and she brushed her mouth against his, then slid her cheek across his smooth jaw. Sometimes, they did just this. The feel of his skin against hers was enough to stir up her desire.

Bran slid his hands under her T-shirt, running his hands over her back, her sides, up to her bra, which he unclipped.

The door to the office was open and distantly she could hear their people laughing and talking. “We need to close the door,” she whispered against his neck before lightly nipping him.

Bran wasn’t listening to her. Instead he murmured something about bending her over his desk which, honestly, sent such a jolt of lust through her she entirely lost her train of thought. He caught her mouth, tongue delving inside and she reciprocated enthusiastically. Anyone with half a brain would be able to interpret the noises they were making now.

Bran’s clever fingers undid her jeans. With sudden anxiety, Leah’s brain skipped forward, imagined the scenario where the whole pack heard him making her come and she shoved at him, hard. “Door, Bran,” she said, firmly. As an incentive, she pulled off her T-shirt and bra, flung them to one side.

He stood, panting, eyes blown with lust. “Door. Yes.”

It shut, of its own accord. Leah stared at it, wide-eyed. “Did you…?”

“Wind tunnel,” Bran said abruptly, his eyes on her mouth, then her bare breasts. He dropped his pants, then reached for the hem of his T-shirt as she shimmied out of her jeans.

Leah didn’t think they would have fooled anyone. The office was sound proofed but werewolf noses were well used to sniffing out things people would rather have kept private. Of course, Bran couldn’t care less, just dressed afterwards and looked... not pleased with himself, perhaps, but certainly rested.

She checked her reflection in the glass doors of one of the cabinets that stored his more delicate books, patted down her hair. Her fingers told her there was a love bite on her neck.

“Mmm, sorry,” Bran said, coming up behind her, touching the mark himself.

He wasn’t in the least repentant. “You’re not sorry.”

“No.” He huffed out a laugh. He kissed the mark softly. “Tell me the thing, again.”

‘The thing’. Leah smiled. She turned around and looped her arms around his neck. His eyes were soft. “Bran, I’m not going to leave you.” It was curious how this was becoming _less_ funny as time wore on, how it was becoming easier and more meaningful to say. She kissed him tenderly. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

He cuddled her close. “That’s nice,” he sighed in relief. 

*

Leah did Change that evening but she didn’t go far from the house which, in her wolf form, was rather a battle with her own instincts as she heard the howls and barks of her pack in the distance. Certainly, it gave her a flavor of what Bran was going through. She repeatedly ran back to the house to check on him, sitting on the back terrace with a cup of tea and a book. He scrubbed his hands through her fur as she playfully licked his face. “I’m doing just fine, Leah, go and run with our people.”

Long after midnight, she climbed into bed with him and they made love, entwined together tightly, barely separating. “Say it again,” Bran whispered, where no one but she could hear.

“I’m not going to leave you,” she replied. Tenderness filled her. She kissed the corner of his mouth, stroked her hands through his hair. “I’m not going to leave you because I love you.” The words tripped off her tongue without her thinking about it, like they never had before. 

Leah felt his body relax and Bran curled around her, hands cradling her face. “I love you,” he said for the first time, his lips so close to hers that she felt the whisper of air. Though she knew, though she had seen it in him, her heart skipped. He smoothed a hand down the side of her face, grazed her chin. “And, I promise, you’ll never have need to mistrust me again. I’ll do better by you, Leah.”

As Leah herself melted, her wolf rumbled with approval and a warning. The message was clear, for once. _You’d better_ , she was saying. _Or else._

This was the way of their love, Leah thought, closing her eyes to sleep in her husband’s arms.

-end-


End file.
